Gay sitcom Vicious gets second series

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While I’m pleased a gay lifestyle comedy has made it to mainstream ITV, I’m disappointed it’s this one. Big talent in the main actors (except the ‘straight’ neighbour from upstairs whom I find excrutiatingly bad), it lacks one essential ingredient. Empathy. I couldn’t care less what happens to any of them. Hopefully, it will have found its stride by the second series.

While your opinion is perfectly fine, I would shy away from using the phrase “gay lifestyle” if I were you. I know you didn’t mean it in a negative way, but it is a life not a lifestyle, and the phrase is used by bigots to make it sound like falling for and being with someone of the same sex is a choice when, of course, it is not. Sorry if this sounds pedantic, but I think it’s important.

Is it the word ‘style’ to which you object? If I’d said, ‘a gay life comedy’, would that mean something different to you? I’ve been with the same partner for 32 years. We have a ‘gay lifestyle’. We mix with mainly gay friends (I don’t suppose that can be said for many heterosexuals). We don’t have kids (ditto) and consequently have much more disposable income (ditto). We have a ‘GAY lifestyle’ as opposed to a ‘heterosexual lifestyle’. So, to answer your question; yes – I do think you are being unduly pedantic.

They are no more negative characterizations than any extreme person in a comedy – and as the first series moved on we learnt that they did love each other and support each other – in their own unique way.

When any couple have lived together for that many years, a tit for tat and verbal banter always developes – This is the first comedy to show a couple who have lasted for decades and from an old generation who would have met when being Gay was still criminal.

I’m secretly pleased. I didn’t like it at first and bought into the “oh, it’s stereotypical rubbish, pandering to the Larry Grayson school of camp humour…”. But you know, so what if it is, it’s brilliantly played by the 2 leads and by the end of the series, I decided I liked it a lot! I think it’s wonderful that 2 elderly gay men get to strut their deliciously camp stuff on prime time TV!

Thank you – Those contributors who still loathe this vey funny, very well performed series cast your minds back to the first series of Only Fools & Horses, Ab Fab, and many others that developed into amazing comedy series from tentative 1st outings. –

Some Comedy relies on grotesques or vile characters who all have an endearing quality that eventually viewers grow to like.

I heard that the recent Marmite advert has received hundreds of complaints because it trivialised raids on homes where children or animals have been neglected or abused. As you say, either you love it or hate it.

I have to say I found it awful, and was very worried about the image of LGBTQ people it puts out, but THAT SAID, I don’t think the solution would be stopping the broadcast of “Vicious” and its ilk, but rather ensuring that OTHER LGBTQ characters exist on TV alongside them which offer alternatives.

It’s about showing LGBTQ people as the multifaceted, rounded human beings they are, as opposed to the same narrow behavioural stereotypes being wheeled out again and again. Keep Vicious by all means, but let’s have something to bring balance to our representation as well.

We both loved the first series.
Those people who complain are just seeing themselves as the two vicious old gay men.
Im 52 going 53 in January 2014 and my Husband is 35 we can both be bitches but both totally in love with each other Just like Jacobi and Mckellan. Were straight acting but can be camp at times. As the Vulcan Mr Spock in Star Trek’s Vulcan symbol he wears says Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Some of us love the stereotypical image Get Over It.

My best friend and I have always spoken to each other in the same manner. This is just a different type of gay relationship. So more power to them. Bring on even more gay characters in more shows. They can be bitchy, cliche, boring, … The one thing we should no longer be is invisible.

I think one series was enough. With something like ‘Viscious’ it is easy to run out of ideas, especially with a TV show where 95% of the scenes take place in one room of the house.
And I do hope that Freddy and Stuart have been to see a Relate counsellor!